Once Upon A Dream
by Chellybean17
Summary: Alette Authier: press girl for SHIELD, Nick Fury's personal assistant, and a mind reader who can't control her powers. Loki has plans to use her abilities and unique position within SHIELD to his advantage, but he may have picked the wrong girl, for Alette won't cooperate without question. Pre-Avengers, possible LokixOC


The young woman exhaled heavily, looking up at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Wisps of her light blonde hair clung to her sweat-dotted forehead and her clear blue eyes were tinged with red. She looked utterly exhausted, because she was. The migraine that throbbed at her temples had been threatening her all day, but only now was she too weak to hold it back.

"You look like hell, Alette," remarked another woman, curvy and redheaded, as she stepped out of the stall. "Stark's press conference?"

Alette laughed wearily as she tucked her wayward hair back into her elegant updo. "Yeah, that was the majority of it. They just won't leave it alone, no matter how much I assure them everything's under control. Would you mind taking a few of them out for me, Nat?"

Natasha Romanoff gave a wry smile. "I could just do away with Stark." _He's an arrogant bastard anyhow._

Months of practice stopped her from reacting to the stray thought that managed to slip through her barrier, which was already damaged from the press conference and the dozens of voices, mental and verbal, that had assaulted her. "Then I'd hardly have a job," she joked, dabbing on the powder that she kept in her purse for emergencies such as this. That, of course, was not true; in addition to being the press girl for S.H.I.E.L.D., she was also Director Fury's personal assistant, and he never ran out of things for her to do.

"Oh, Fury'd keep you busy," the assassin said, eyebrows raised. As she dried her hands on a paper towel, she advised, "I'd take some aspirin. A lot. And a couple of drinks might help too."

"Not if I'm hung-over at work tomorrow," Alette sighed. "But thanks Nat. See ya." She sighed again, then stood straight and tried to put the peppy smile she usually wore back on her face, but it was no use. The migraine was beginning to recede, thankfully, but it wouldn't leave for good. Even on her best days, there was always a dull pain from the pressure of so many minds against her own. It was all she could do to build a wall and try to keep all the thoughts out, but even still, her wall could crumble, and thoughts could still slide through.

Well, the one consolation was that her day was almost over, and soon she would be within the quiet confines of her apartment with nothing but a good book and her cat Athena to distract her.

Picking up her tablet and straightening her blouse, Alette strode out of the bathroom exuding more confidence than she felt.

She met Director Fury at the helicopter on top of the building, and climbed in next to him before they took off. He gave her a hard look with his one remaining eye. "You look like shit. What happened? I didn't see any problem with the press conference."

A genuine laugh bubbled out of her. "I must look worse than I thought; Nat told me I looked like hell. But really, I'm fine, I just got a migraine."

He nodded. "You read the file I sent home with you yesterday, correct?"

"The one about thermonuclear astrophysics? Of course, sir. It was quite an interesting read." She was surprised he even asked her; she always read whatever he sent home with her, and thoroughly. Her mind was quick, so it wasn't hard for her to pick up on the difficult topics she was often assigned to be knowledgeable about.

"Dr. Erik Selvig, the man heading the project with the Tesseract, will need your assistance. One of his techs came down with the flu and will be out for the next couple of days; you're her replacement."

Alette knew she wasn't the top choice, since she had basically no experience with thermonuclear astrophysics, but she was likely the only one with high enough security clearance to be allowed near the immensely powerful blue box. "I'll do my best, sir; I won't let you down."

_You never have._ "He'll need you for a few hours tonight – you'll be working late, I'm afraid – then you'll be with him on and off until the tech gets back or the Tesseract gets stabilized." _I can't let him have you too much._

She glowed despite herself at his praise, even if it was only in his thoughts. Fury wasn't much for emotion. The helicopter landed on the roof of the compound, and the two of them quickly got out, heading for Dr. Selvig's lab. The older man was hard at work on a sort of bracing device, assisted by a man and woman, both younger than him but a few years older than Alette.

He wiped the sweat off his brow and walked over to them. A scowl formed on his face when he saw Alette. _Child._ The thought was blunt and hard. While she did have a young, fresh-faced look, 26 was not a child, and she was far more intelligent than most people her age; try as she might, she couldn't stop her normally soft eyes from hardening as she looked back at him. Hubris was her downfall, and she couldn't stand being looked down on.

"_She's_ supposed to replace Jenna?" Selvig scoffed. "Keep her, Fury; she'll be more useful making your coffee and responding to your emails."

The Director glared down at him intimidatingly. "Alette Authier is one of the most capable young women I have known, and you should count yourself lucky to have her. She is not an expert in this field, but she knows the basics and she is ready to learn and help you in any way she can. No arguments." To Alette, he said, "There will be a car waiting to drive you home when you are done." With that, he turned and left, his leather coat trailing behind him.

"Follow me," Selvig said gruffly, and she went with him to the Tesseract. "Rule #1: Don't touch anything. Rule #2: Don't do anything unless one of us tells you. Rule #3: Stay out of the way."

"Don't mind him, he's an ass to everyone at first. I'm Debbie," the woman smiled. Her curly dark hair, which was pulled back in a ponytail, was dyed a mix of fuchsia and purple on the underside; each ear had three piercings, one of them with a cartilage stud; and Alette was pretty sure she saw the colorful swirls of a sleeve tattoo creeping down her arm and peeking out of her lab coat. She didn't look like some genius scientist, but she had a self-assured confidence about her that said she knew what she was doing. "That's Brian. He doesn't talk much about anything except work."

Like Debbie, Brian looked to be in his early thirties, but he actually looked like he belonged at first glance. His brown-black hair was cropped short, and he regarded her with serious almond eyes. "Hi," he said shortly, though not in an unfriendly way, before returning to work.

"If you're done chatting, we have serious matters to deal with," Selvig interrupted. "Like stabilizing the Tesseract. So we need to rewire this circuit, Alette I need Deb's diagrams, thank you, if you look at A.6…"

When they finally managed to get the Tesseract stable enough to last until the next day, it was well past midnight. Selvig had come to a begrudging acceptance of Alette's aptitude; like Fury had promised, she was willing to learn and be helpful despite not being an expert. She'd mostly fetched tools and held up diagrams, but a few of her soft suggestions had turned into real possibilities. By the time she'd been driven home to her New York loft, she was dead on her feet.

Blearily, she went through all of the security measures to get inside; punching in a code, pressing her thumb to a pad, getting her eye scanned, and speaking a weekly-updated phrase in the dialect of French that she'd inherited from her parents. S.H.I.E.L.D. spared no expense on the security of its employees, nor were they stingy on salary in general.

Tired as she was, Alette did not stop to appreciate her rustic kitchen or her living room filled with classy vintage furniture, or even her antique bookshelf with her treasured collection of classic tomes. The only things she did before climbing into her large cozy bed were tip some food into her cat's bowl and change into the cozy French lingerie her aunt had sent her. Personal hygiene would have to wait until the morning. Cuddling Athena, who had hopped up on the bed and curled up next to her in a furry ball, Alette closed her eyes and fell asleep.

Her sleep was not a peaceful thing. It was better than staying up all night, but just barely. The walls that she built during the day to keep the minds of everyone around her out collapsed at night, her resting mind unable to maintain them. Tonight it was worse than usual; it seemed as if the whole city was pressing down on her, as if all the minds of the world were striving to break into hers. Alette was made of stern stuff, but she simply didn't know what to do, for she'd never felt pressure like this before. "Stop it!" she commanded.

Nothing changed.

"Stop it!" Her voice took on a desperate edge. Tears swam in her eyes. Being in control, knowing what she was doing – those things were so important to her. And neither of those things were possible. What could she do? How could she stop it? She couldn't, she was forced to conclude. All Alette could do was hunker down and try to ride it out until morning. She clenched her eyes shut and covered her ears with her hands, curling up in a ball like a child. She felt so weak, but it wasn't like she could fight all those minds off.

Without warning, she felt a hard sting on her cheek and a rush of wind. Someone had just slapped her. Her eyes flicked open, and she rose with as much strength as she could muster. A man was standing in front of her with his arms crossed, a hard, angry look on his face. "Cease with your sniveling, wench; you are stronger than this."

Alette glared at the pale, dark-haired man, crossing her arms as well. "How would you know? And who are you, anyway? I've never seen another person in my dreams." Felt their mind, yes, but never seen an actual person standing before her, fully formed as she was.

He smirked. "You will know me when I am ready for you to. First you must stop acting weaker than you are. These minds that throw themselves against yours are nothing; you must block them out until you hear only the things that you wish to, and nothing more."

"How?" Her voice was guarded, but a part of her was filled with hope. For all this man's arrogance and brutal treatment of her (she had never been slapped like that in her life and did not plan on letting it happen again), he _had_ appeared in her dreams like no one else before, and he did seem to know what he was talking about. Maybe he was the solution to the migraines and the endless attacks on her mind.

The man rolled his shockingly green eyes in contempt. "Concentration. Indeed, it is that simple, do not look so shocked."

She couldn't help but bristle at his condescending tone. Everything about him, from his smugly confident posture to the way his words oozed sickeningly-sweet out of his mouth like he was talking to an infant, put her on edge. He was a man who in no way took her seriously. "I've tried that already. How do you think I'm able to keep them out during the day?"

"All you do is keep them out, and not completely, and not at all during the night." He gave her a hard look as he thought, then reached his hands out to touch the side of her head. When she pulled away, he gripped her tighter and hissed, "I am using my own power to help you; do not flinch away from me. Concentrate on a sturdy wall, with gates only you can open. Yes, just like that. Do not stop."

Alette pictured a high, thick wall of strong stone encircling her mind with iron gates that could only be opened from the inside. As she did so, she felt the man's power strengthening the wall, until it became something real instead of just a vision in her head. She opened her eyes in wonder. "The voices…they're all gone. Thank you."

"Do not thank me yet," he scoffed. "Our work is far from done. Rest now." The man faded, the green and black and bronze of his body smearing like watercolors until they were nothing.

For the first time in months, she was at peace. It was just her in her head, no one else, and it was heavenly. Sighing, she felt her mind truly join her body in its rest, and she drifted off to true sleep.

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